Theresa May throws Christmas drinks bash… but some hacks get better offers

Written by David Singleton on 19 December 2017 in Diary

Diary

Rupert Murdoch held a private drinks event at his penthouse apartment in Mayfair.

Guests at last night’s Number 10 Christmas drinks for lobby journalists heard that Theresa May has now bought most of her presents and she will be enjoying roast goose as usual this year. But her go-to chef for Christmas feasting is not Delia Smith. Rather, the prime minister is looking to Nigel Slater for inspiration in the kitchen next week.

Among those turning up to chew the festive fat with the prime minister and her top team in Number 10 were the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg and Sky News’s Faisal Islam.

But some senior journalists had another party to go to, with Rupert Murdoch hosting a private drinks event at his penthouse apartment overlooking Green Park.

The POLITICO Playbook memo offers a list of MPs at the Murdoch bash that "reads like a who’s who of parliament’s rising stars". According to the memo, Jess Phillips, Tom Tugendhat , Dominic Raab, Rishi Sunak and Kemi Badenoch were all there - along with the likes of Bill Wyman and Grayson Perry.

Meanwhile journalists at the party included The Sun’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn, Spectator editor Fraser Nelson and Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre.

However the hottest tickets of all last night were bagged by the BBC’s Nick Robinson and Financial Times editor Lionel Barber.

As their fellow journalists mingled at the May and Murdoch parties, Robinson and Barber were in the audience for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Pulitzer prize-winning hip-hop musical Hamilton, which has just arrived in London.